Football's growing popularity in private schools another sign game is breaking down barriers

Adam D'Apuzzo and Matt McKay didn't figure among the votes for the best player in the A-League grand final, but they must have been mighty close. And while they started on opposing sides, they did have something in a common: both are private school graduates. And as football basks in the afterglow of a memorable grand final, and looks with a mixture of fear and excitement towards the World Cup, here is another indicator of just how well the game is going right now – arguably the best it's ever been in a chequered history dating back at least 134 years.

The match that some historians argue started it all in 1880 did, of course, involve a private school, the King's School, at Parramatta in Sydney. But it's been unconquered territory ever since as the Anglo-Saxon establishment favoured cricket and Australian football in the southern states, and rugby in the eastern states.

Football was banished to the fringes – at best ignored, at worst actively discouraged. It says much about the game's buoyancy that after more than a century of disenfranchisement, football is now not simply breaking down those barriers, it's smashing them down.

Whether it's changing demographics – the student population is much more representative of immigration patterns – or a reflection of more modern attitudes, hardly matters. The fact is football is bursting through private schools like a steam train, and last year D'Apuzzo's alma mater, Trinity Grammar School, in Sydney, sliced through a hugely significant glass ceiling. By winning Australia's biggest and most important schools competition, the Bill Turner Cup, Trinity demonstrated that private schools football is steadily transitioning from quantity (Sydney Grammar now has 55 teams and 700 players) to quality – a trend that has enormous implications for the development pathway.

Trinity's success under head coach Zlatko Arambasic – a former Olyroos striker who spent the bulk of his playing career in Europe – saw the Summer Hill college knock out three public schools with highly regarded football programs: Bossley Park High (NSW), Maribyrnong College (Victoria) and Cavendish Road High (Queensland).

In winning a competition that started with 466 schools, from Cairns to Melbourne, Trinity became the first private independent school to win the Bill Turner Cup in its 35-year history.

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As is the way of these things, Trinity's success is likely to set off an ''arms race'' among private schools, and with the money and facilities these schools are blessed with, don't discount them playing an increasingly important role in the development of elite players.

Whether in partnership with state federations and A-League clubs (Newington College has been talking to Sydney FC) or under their own steam, these institutions have the ability to complement or enhance cash-strapped development programs around the country – especially if the practice of offering scholarships to talented players from underprivileged backgrounds gathers momentum.

Right now, D'Apuzzo and McKay (Brisbane Grammar) provide important role models for a system that is now spending hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars on football infrastructure and quality coaching. As an example, the likes of Ian Crook (Newington, NSW), Greg Brown (Brisbane Boys' College, Qld)), Milan Blagojevic (Knox Grammar, NSW) and John Kosmina (Christian Brothers College, SA) are now coaching at private schools throughout the country.

That might not sound like much in relation to AFL, cricket and rugby, but the wave is coming.

How big is the wave? Just the other day in Adelaide, Kosmina counted seven players in his weekly competition who are currently involved in Adelaide United's youth team, some as train-ons. It's a sign of progress.

Another sign is in NSW, where the independent schools – which account for about 12 per cent of the total school population – have demonstrated huge improvements in just a few years.

''Probably the best way of measuring it,'' says Combined Independent Schools co-ordinator Dom Helene, ''is the results we're getting when we play the public schools. We pick a CIS rep team every year, and I remember we used to get smashed 5-6-nil. Last year we drew with the public schools, which to me shows the progress we've made, the benefits of all the work we're putting in.''